Lehigh Valley hits jobs milestone

Lehigh Valley region sees record number of jobs and lowest unemployment in six years.

Lehigh Valley region sees record number of jobs and lowest unemployment in six years.

Anthony SalamoneOf The Morning Call

Lehigh Valley is back in business

The Lehigh Valley saw a record number of jobs in October, as unemployment continued a three-month decline and reached its lowest level in more than six years.

Unemployment dipped in October as the Lehigh Valley metro region added 2,300 seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs over last year and 800 jobs since September — numbers that bode well for the local economy's gradual recovery heading into 2015.

The Valley's jobless rate dropped 0.2 percent to 5.6 percent in October, the lowest number since June 2008, according to monthly workforce data released Thursday by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. Pennsylvania's unemployment rate dropped to 5.4 percent and the federal rate sat at 5.8 percent.

"All are sharing in the wealth," said Steven Zellers, an analyst with the Labor Department.

The Lehigh Valley's metro region is now home to 350,100 jobs, a record high.

Bethlehem economist Kamran Afshar, who sounded optimistic during January's Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce annual economic outlook event, continues to see signs of an improving local economy. He said the businesses he has recently surveyed plan to add new jobs and spend more during the next six months.

Lehigh Valley region sees record number of jobs and lowest unemployment in six years.

(April Bartholomew)

"Eventually we are catching up," Afshar said. "It took a lot to catch up to where we were in 2007. Hopefully, we will surpass that soon."

One sector that saw a spike in local employment was leisure and hospitality, no doubt boosted by September's opening of Allentown's PPL Center, which has spawned a flurry of economic activity and many new restaurants and retail establishments downtown. While the sector was down seasonally from September, employment increased significantly over the year.

The segment saw an increase in 1,800 jobs over last year, with more restaurants and drinking places open for business, Zellers noted. In addition, he said Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem and Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom, among the Valley's major recreation and amusement employers, continued adding jobs.

The region had 35,100 jobs in leisure and hospitality, a 5.4 increase over the number of jobs in the sector in October 2013.

"Even though 1,800 seems like a lot, that's out of a baseline out of 33,300 jobs over October 2013," Zellers said.

Still, the number is down over August and September, when the state recorded 37,000 and 35,300 people working in that sector, respectively.

Economist Mike Wolf at Wells Fargo Securities tempered the positive news by noting the local labor force — or the number of people working — has seen a dip for more than a year, as more people move off unemployment rolls and give up seeking new work.

"The overall trend [of people working], if you graph that out over the last year and a half, is clearly downward," said Wolf, whose territory includes Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The state report also says 23,700 people were out of work in the region in October.

The headline jobs number, Wolf said, doesn't account for those still struggling to find gainful employment as they run out of government assistance.

Still, that the labor force has seen an increase in the number of jobs is a positive sign for the region, according to Wolf.

Seasonal gains came in the education, government and leisure and hospitality industries, while transportation, warehousing, transportation and professional, technical and business services set new highs for employment.

The Lehigh Valley continued to lead the way in new transportation and warehousing jobs, up 300 from the previous month and 1,200 since October of last year.

The October decline in the jobless rate made for a year-to-date decline of 1.8 percent.

The Lehigh Valley is part of a four-county metropolitan statistical area that also includes Carbon County and Warren County, N.J. Excluding Warren, Zellers said the October rate for the MSA would be 5.1 percent.

"A year ago," Zellers said, "the New Jersey portion of the MSA was about the same, but the Pennsylvania counties have improved better than New Jersey over the year."

The last 2014 unemployment report, covering November, is due out Dec. 30, Zellers said.

"Technically, we refrain from making prognostications," said Zellers, "but you can see that the MSA has been on an improving trend."